The cash-strapped city of Philadelphia, which is in dire need of energy-efficient retrofits at many of its government buildings including City Hall, has come up with a unique way to pay for the no-money-down improvements, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The city has contracted with private company Noresco to do the energy-efficiency renovations and will pay the company for improvements using the cash it saves from lower energy bills, reports Philadelphia Inquirer. In addition, if any of the projects -- such as a new $3.7 million chilled-water plant for the Criminal Justice Center -- don't yield enough savings to pay for the capital investment, Noresco will make up the difference, according to the article.
Philadelphia spent over $48 million on electricity, heating oil, and natural gas in fiscal year 2008-09, causing the city to set goals to reduce municipal energy use by 10 percent this year and by 30 percent over the next five years, reports the newspaper.
Only investments that yield energy savings greater than the cost of the upgrade within a 15-year window will be considered such as a new energy-management database system, along with fixing its drafty roofs, leaking windows, and inefficient heating and cooling systems, according to the article.
